When Good Principles Are Not Enough
Who deserves mercy? An essay on the boundaries of protection in the name of values.
Ideas in context.
Essays exploring history, social transformation, values and the pursuit of knowledge, with links to their original publications.
SUGGESTED READING PATH
Four steps into the project
01
Begin with the project
Read the School of Values overview and the questions the project explores.
02Move into practice
Start with the essay that tests what happens when principles enter practice.
03Examine authority and accountability
Continue with the limits of obedience and who defines its conditions.
04Place the questions in history
Conclude with the archival essays as earlier stages of the intellectual journey.
School of Values
School of Values
Recent essays developing and testing the project’s questions in thought and practice.
Who Defines the Condition?
On authority that can be obeyed without being sanctified, and who defines the conditions of obedience.
Who Carries Your Error?
Why do we ask others to relieve us of the burden of judgment?
The Recognition That Changes Nothing
When does acknowledging an error become a substitute for correcting it?
Journeys Through Time
Journeys Through Time
Narrative essays returning to decisive moments in history, not to recover the past as a finished story, but to examine the ideas, values and conflicts that shaped its outcomes. In these journeys, the time machine becomes a way of thinking: a historical scene, an imagined dialogue and a question addressed to the present.
The Amazing Transformations and the Coming Change
An introductory reflection on civilizational change, ideas, moral frameworks and the social conditions of transformation.
The Revolution Between Justice and Revenge
A narrative journey into the French Revolution and the tension between justice and revenge.
Revolution Between Faith and Atheism
An early dialogue reflecting on the French Revolution, faith and religious authority.
Heritage and Revolutions
A narrative exploration of why revolutions produce different outcomes, and how violence can be committed in the name of freedom, justice and equality.
Between Scientific and Metaphysical Thinking
A dialogue exploring modes of thought, interpretations of texts and their relationship to reform and social change.
Thinkers and the Revolution
A narrative dialogue on Montesquieu, his writings and the influence of ideas on political change.
The Historian and the Revolution
On the historian’s selection of evidence and the relationship between historical inquiry and intellectual bias.
Revolutionary Waves
A reflection on phases of revolutionary change, moving from initial upheaval to criticism, reassessment and collective awareness.
The archival texts retain their original publication dates and are presented as a record of an earlier period of cultural writing and engagement.